Bristol Insights
Top 3 Investor Relations Tips For Small Cap Companies On A Limited Budget
Proactive Investor Relations: A Path to Successful Capital Raising for Micro and Small-Cap Companies
In the intricate world of micro and small-cap public companies, orchestrating a successful capital raise can be a challenge that requires strategic acumen and meticulous planning. At the heart of this journey lies proactive Investor Relations (IR), a crucial element that can significantly influence an outcome. Initiating proactive IR activities well in advance of a…
Read MoreThe Vital Importance of Investor Feedback for Small Public Companies
Having actively managed investor relations strategies for over twenty years, the team at Bristol Capital has learned that effectively engaging with shareholders and prospective investors is crucial for the long-term success of small public companies. Investor feedback serves as an invaluable and essential resource for the management team and their board of directors, helping them…
Read MoreBest Practices in Investor Relations for Small Public Companies
The Bristol Capital team has been working with small, publicly listed companies since 1999 giving us a unique perspective and understanding of the importance of effective communication with investors. Public micro-cap companies often face unique challenges in terms of resources and market awareness, which makes it critical to have strong investor relations practices in place.…
Read MoreA Changing Corporate Objective
Recently, an increasing number of industry leaders have proposed a new consideration as to why a corporation exists and what its main goal should be. Previously, corporations were run according to the age-old notion that they function first and foremost to serve and maximize their profits to their shareholders. Milton Friedman, an American economist held…
Read MoreCommunicating in a COVID-19 Landscape
The fast moving COVID-19 pandemic is undoubtedly challenging for many companies, especially from a communications perspective. Market volatility, broader business impacts, employee safety concerns and the resulting changes and impact on financial performance are currently all top of mind for companies. The upcoming days and weeks will certainly bring a changing landscape and below are…
Read MoreBoard Diversity
The debate of board diversity has been a hot topic for many years. While most recognize the value that it brings, one can’t argue the findings of a diverse board and its effects to any organization with most people agreeing that it brings unique perspectives and approaches to boardroom issues. In recent years investors have…
Read MoreSEC Testing the Waters Provision
Under the leadership of its Chairman, Jay Clayton, the SEC has for the last two years demonstrated that it wants more companies to go public. This is following an alarming trend that has seen US listings drop by 50 percent in the past two decades, which could be hurting investors. Following on from the Jobs…
Read MoreThe Fearless Girl Update
I first wrote about the Fearless Girl campaign in March 2017 in “How a little girl on Wall Street brought attention to a global issue,” and this year on International Women’s Day, saw a second bronze Fearless Girl statue being unveiled on Paternoster Square in front of the London Stock Exchange building, where she will…
Read MoreA look at quarterly earnings forecasts
Quarter end. These two words evoke many mixed emotions for CEOs, CFOs and other officers of a company the world over. Sometimes, cause for celebration of targets met or exceeded, and other times cause for concern that corporate or sales strategies aren’t working or haven’t been as effective as envisaged. Compound this if you are…
Read MoreWhy IR and perceptions matter in business
According to a recent study undertaken by IR Magazine, almost nine out of ten members of the investment community will assign a sizeable premium to the share price of companies with a well-run IR program and an even bigger discount to those with a substandard one. Findings from the study show that the size of…
Read MoreWomen CEOs running public companies – is the equilibrium being reached?
With the announcement and recent departure of Pepsi’s Indra Nooyi in October of 2018, it has brought into the spotlight (again) the topic of women in management, in particular as CEOs of public companies and on Boards of Directors. Let’s have a look at the data surrounding this topic and into some of the issues…
Read MoreESG and its impact on Investor Relations
Over the past few years there has been an ever-increasing trend and discussion amongst institutional investors to environmental, social and governance (ESG) investing. Driven strongly by Europe and more slowly being adopted by North America, Asia and the rest of the world – each investor, consultant and manager has their own take the topic. Loosely…
Read More5 Reasons to Consider Micro-Caps
Micro-caps get a bad rap. Unfortunately, there are a lot of questionable businesses in this realm exploiting less sophisticated retail investors. However, every company starts small and the micro-cap space also includes its treasure of good companies. Below are 5 reasons to consider micro-caps: It’s well known that the micro-cap market is less efficient. There’s…
Read MoreBOARD OF DIRECTORS – Composition, contribution and collaboration
One can learn a lot from looking at the makeup of any publicly traded or privately-owned company’s Board of Directors. In all cases the primary responsibility of the Board is to be accountable to shareholders and govern a company’s management. However, over the years Boards have increasingly come under pressure in the face of corporate…
Read MorePaid-for Conferences
Management teams of all micro cap companies share common goals: increase the share price, increase the company market cap and generate higher liquidity. These three goals are usually a bi-product of each other, however, to achieve these goals, management must market the company. Companies may not realize the benefits of pro-active marketing immediately but by…
Read MoreEffective Investor Targeting
Investor targeting is an important aspect of any investor relations programme for a publicly traded company but often a difficult one to map out. Difficult as in there are many moving parts to consider and to execute the ones that will derive the best results for your particular needs at a particular given time. This…
Read MoreWhat do Investors want to see in Management Presentations?
In order to increase exposure to their company, management teams frequently conduct seasonal roadshows and webinars where they introduce the company first hand to investors, provide general updates on the business, or wrap up the year in review. Subsequent follow up, which any reputable IR firm should be conducting on behalf of their clients, usually reveals insight…
Read MoreThe importance of press releases
Faced with an ever-changing media landscape, the humble press release has much competition today for dissemination of information for companies. While it is unlikely that the press release will disappear anytime soon, it continues to come up against other channels for distribution of news, updates and information. While many industry watchers predict the decline of…
Read MoreThe Current Canadian Housing and Debt Market
It’s no secret that Canadian household debt levels are staggeringly high. For every dollar of disposable income there is a corresponding $1.72 worth of debt. This ratio of household debt to disposable income gets even worse when analyzing lower income earners as they are shouldering the heaviest burden. Canada’s lowest-income households owe a staggering $3.33…
Read MoreThe 4-1-1 on MIFID II
As of January 3rd, 2018, a revamped version of the Markets in Financial Instruments Directive (Mifid II), is designed to offer greater protection for investors and inject more transparency into all asset classes, from equities to fixed income, exchange traded funds and foreign exchange. The extensive legislation, seven years in the making, already has 1.4…
Read MoreCrisis Communications in Investor Relations
In his 2009 paper, Corporate brand reputation and brand crisis management, Harvard Professor Stephen Greyser identifies several causes for corporate crises, among them product failure, social responsibility gaps, executive misbehavior and poor business results. With such wide-ranging potential for disaster – not including those factors totally out of a company’s control such as the death…
Read MoreDigital media and IR marketing strategy
Investor relations is of high importance as a communications tool in the micro and small cap public company’s marketing strategy. Most widely used as a briefing method for current shareholders and followers, effective investor relations is also used to target new professional audiences which serves to uphold and increase awareness of the company. Businesses that…
Read MoreThe Conundrum of Sell Side Research
There is changing sentiment towards the sell-side analyst community, both in North America and around the world. In its early days, sell side equity research existed for three main reasons. Firstly, to write and analyze on clients of the capital markets arm of the firm, secondly to create corporate access and events for these clients…
Read MoreUsing in-house Investor Relations or an external IR firm – which is the best way to go?
There are always two sides to any argument and in this case, deciding whether to use in-house IR resources or an external IR firm, I don’t think there can be a definite answer or clear winner. The answer might lie somewhere in the middle in a rather gray area and should take into consideration the…
Read More5 things to consider when hiring an IR agency
Over the years, Bristol has met with many companies that shared negative stories about past investor relations experiences which have made them reluctant to work with third party IR agencies. The once bitten, twice shy syndrome. As a result, potential capital market opportunities are being missed due to public market inefficiency and a company’s reluctance…
Read MoreDesigning an Investor Relations website
Designing an effective corporate investor relations website can be challenging in that it needs to cater to a wide audience – from potential investors to current shareholders, journalists, analysts and everyone in between. When considering if your investor relations website section is up to scratch, consider the following as something to think about to see…
Read More5 things every CEO needs to know about proactive investor relations
Most corporate executives would not list investor relations among their preferred responsibilities. Management teams want to focus their time on running the business and letting the results speak for themselves. Market prices reflect all available information, so why bother to do more IR than the minimum? In practice, companies find their stock prices to reflect…
Read MoreHow to compile a brilliant investor presentation
Management knows the all-important investor Power Point presentation is a critical component of the company’s financial communications with the investor community and at the heart of IR messaging. Easy to say but not always so easy to successfully compile such a document. As a sales and marketing document, it has to have certain elements that…
Read MoreHow a little girl on Wall Street brought attention to a global issue
Starting this month, the team at Bristol would like to welcome you to Bristol Insights, a monthly feature where we discuss, analyse and highlight topics of interest across the field of investor relations that are relevant to management and the investment community. The objective is to provide a perspective on current topics that are relevant…
Read More